Winning an Oscar used to be the stepping stone to a long- term movie career. Now, it means keeping your fingers crossed that your TV show pilot gets picked up.

Contenders for slots on the 2010-2011 primetime line-up include a surprising slew of Oscar-winning actors who’ve stepped off the big screen in hopes of a lucrative TV deal this year.

“There used to be a barrier between TV and movies, but that barrier has lifted to some extent and it’s easier to make the transition,” says industry analyst Brad Adgate of Horizon Media.

Someone like Kathy Bates, who has been guest starring on “The Office,” Adgate says, “could easily go back and do a movie [after filming a TV show], and no one would have a problem with that.”

“The best material and the best roles are happening on TV and actors are recognizing that,” says a prominent Hollywood talent agent who asked to remain unnamed because of the sensitivity of his business relationships.

Movie stars — especially stars of a certain age — have been finding refuge in TV since the 1950s. But never have so many actors who have won Hollywood’s highest honor flocked to the small screen. This fall, we could be seeing Forrest Whitaker, who won an Oscar for “The Last King of Scotland,” playing the head FBI profiler in the “Criminal Minds” spin-off for CBS.

Meanwhile, Sissy Spacek, who won an Oscar for “Coal Miners Daughter,” may be the star of John Wells’ as-yet-untitled medical drama, also for CBS.

At NBC, Bates — who won an Oscar for “Misery” — has been tapped to play a cranky former patent lawyer in David E. Kelley’s “Kindreds.” Oscar-winner Mary Steenburgen (“Howard and Melvin”) will play the matriarch of a family whose adult kids return home in the ABC comedy “Southern Discomfort,” and Oscar-winner Jon Voight (“Coming Home”) will star as a Texas oilman in the Fox drama “Midland.”

Diane Keaton, who won for “Annie Hall,” is also rumored to be getting in on the act, with a starring role in HBO’s comedy “Tilda,” playing an Internet gossip columnist.

Why the sudden migration to TV?

“People aren’t making as much as they were three or four years ago,” says the agent. “Studios are making ginormous $200 million blockbusters, but they’re not paying actors $20 million. They’re hiring kids off ‘Friday Night Lights‘ or ‘Gossip Girl.’

“The payday [on TV] is much more consistent income,” especially if the shows become hits.

And Oscar winners go right to the high end of the TV salary range, say the experts, making as much as $175,000 a week — or about $4 million for six months’ work.